the.com/starbirth
gravity loses patience with a gas cloud, and a sun is born nine million years later.
means the process by which dense clumps of interstellar gas and dust collapse under their own gravity to ignite as new stars.
from astronomers borrowed the obvious human metaphor because the physics genuinely rhymes with it: a cloud collapses, heats, and eventually erupts into fusion, the closest thing the cosmos has to labor and delivery.
raw materialmostly hydrogen, leftover from the big bang
triggeroften a supernova shockwave next door
success ratemost collapsing clumps fail, only some ignite
timescaletakes roughly ten million years, start to shine
for instance
pillars of creation — eagle nebula towers, hubble photographed them in 1995
orion nebula — 1,344 light years away, visible to the naked eye
tarantula nebula — in the large magellanic cloud, hosts extreme starburst clusters
carina nebula — home to eta carinae, one of the most massive stars known